Thursday, December 27, 2007

I have just finished the semester from hell, and my GPA has completely gone to pot, but the good news is I got a good deal of knitting done, trying to keep myself sane. I'm now at home, doing nothing for three weeks except knitting, cooking, and watching "That 70's Show" with my mother.

I'm also trying to convince myself to come around to playing my crappy viola again. Two months ago I had an instrument sent to me to try out, and I completely fell in love with it, planned on buying it, and then could not get a loan. I had to send it back to Canada, which cost me (ok, my parents), $300 f#&!*n dollars. Right after my jury. For those of you who have never been music students, juries are performance finals, where the faculty sits around and says 'Dance monkey, dance!' and you get graded. I probably don't need to say it wasn't my best jury ever, since I was trying really hard not to cry the whole time, and I blanked on my stupid scale fingerings - the same ones I've been using for five years! So I got it over with, promptly went to my locker, and sobbed my guts out as I put my bow and music and all the little knick-knacks that go with violas back into my own case. I took the amazing viola back to my dorm, packed it in its box, cried a little more, then went to the UPS store, and it was gone. So since then, I haven't been feeling the motivation much. I'm back to old Klaus (yes, I name my instruments), and he served me well in the bar gig my band had last week, but I am simply not going to get very far in the field of classical performance if I don't upgrade within the next few years. I think I deserve better than this, but apparently the loan companies and my school don't care. Yes, I have no credit history, and no job. I'M A STUDENT. Gimme money.

So anyway...

I'm still working on my Christmas knitting! I finished a Flora scarf for my mother, pictures coming soon, and several friends are getting items that I will post about after they have received them, just in case they actually read this (hay you guys!).

So we'll call this my goodbye to 2007 (even though it's after midnight. Whatever.), and very, very soon (I promise!), there will be a ~*SHINY NEW 2008 POST*~ full of photo-graphy goodness, and optimism for the new year. Maybe there will even be resolutions. Ooh!Be excited.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

I realize that in my haste to get to class, I might scare a few of my sidewalk cohabitants. After several months of this, I got my comeuppance today at about 1:30 when the sidewalk decided to come uppance at my face.WEAR A HELMET.

In knitting news, Halloween has come and gone, and was very successful. I knit a cat costume. A campus cat, to be specific. If you're not familiar with UNL, we have a legendary flock of feral cats, which were originally brought to the campus to reduce the rabbit population. We now have inbred, diseaseful kitties. Good job, Nebraska. It's all knit out of grossie Lion Brand Yarns, which have found their true calling: durable, plasticy costumes for rowdy college parties.

The bane of my existence as a music student, the semesterly opera, is upon us. To cope with the pain of playing Mozart for four hours everyday in a dark, cramped orchestra pit, I'm knitting a cabled mini sweater out of gorgeous lime green-vari Araucania Nature Wool. It makes me feel a whole lot better about my shitty day of eating sidewalk and subsequently having to go to the *#^&$*%$^% Health Center to see FOUR people before someone finally confirmed that I do not have a concussion, to know that I can go hole up with my awesome yarn and bamboo needles. Big thanks to my mother for buying this broke co-ed some quality yarn.

What else is on the needles? Two words:

UGLY BLANKET.

If you're on ravelry, go look at the list of yarns that are in this thing. I'll have pictures soon. It's REALLY ugly, and yet, replete with amazingness. Scraps from almost every project I have used decent yarn for. Keep in mind, for the first three to four years of my knitterly existence, I used a helluvalot of c-h-e-a-p yarn. If I had sequenced the yarns in chronological order it would go something like: Red Heart, miles of Lion Brand esp. Fun Fur, random novelty yarns of all sorts, wools, elasticized cotton, and alpaca forever and ever amen.

There is a set of coral and lime bikini bottoms in hibernation until I do my Christmas/winter knitting. I would like to finish this green sweater before I go to New York in January... we'll see. I'm knitting a little something for my mother's Christmas present, and she probably will never read this, but just in case, I'ma keepin it a secret except to say that it's from Knitty.com

The public library back home in Manhattan, Kansas has a "Mitten tree," every year around Christmas (who says that agnostics can't enjoy the holidays?!), so I'm going to cast on a little hat this weekend to donate, an maybe a matching scarf. I also have a little set of baby socks lying around that I made years ago just to learn how to make socks, so I think it would be appropriate to donate them, since I don't really know any babies...Since it is getting close to that time of year, I strongly encourage knitters and non-knitters alike to donate, help out, do your part any way you can. Make a hat. Serve some soup. Give away the part of your stash you'll never use. Teach someone to knit!

Speaking of teaching, I just taught my roommate how to knit about a month ago - she is a freaking prodigy! Her first project was a scarf. Not just your standard beginner-garter-stitch-mess scarf, oh no, there is ribbing and patterniness galore, and her stitches are even. [I know - whuuuuuuuuut?] Her second project (in progress), is Elisa's Nest Tote from Purl Soho. IT'S LACE. SECOND PROJECT. EVER. We are going to launch an empire of knitting, blogging and podcasty goodness.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

As a former xanga-ist, I am not completely new to the world of blogging, but let's consider this the birth of a new blogger. Most of my posts should be about knitting, but there will inevitably be bits and pieces about my adventures in college-land, viola playing, and becoming a professional starving artist.

Allow me to introduce myself: My real-world name is Jordan. I'm a student at UNL, majoring in viola performance and often wishing I could major in Domestic Goddessry. My roommate, our yarn stash, the fish, Klaus the viola, my library, obscene amounts of furniture, my Mary Kay bags (Why yes, I do sell the nation's #1 selling brand of skin-care and cosmetics! What can I say? I'm a poor college student.), annnnd I (if there's room), live in a 11'x16' dorm room! If you think your house is too small for your yarn stash, imagine two knitters and all their stuff living in a closet. Then give thanks for your spacious abode. Besides being a sardine, I also enjoy cooking, live theater, dancing, cheese, chocolate, and hiking when I'm in Colorado. In addition music I'm studying German, hence the name Stricken - v. to knit. It also just sounds sexy, even if you don't know it means "knitting." I listen to Lime and Violet like it's my job, and my pattern stash, bookmarks list, and geek-queendom have all grown exponentially in the month and a half since I discovered the magical world of podcasts. In fact, one of my large goals for next summer is to have my own podcast, co-hosted by my mother and/or my roommate. Mom isn't a big-time knitter, but she's got some 'tude, and she lets the most wonderfully inappropriate things slip sometimes. She also spray-paints our neighbors' porch lights if they're too bright and shine into our living room... You see where I get my badass genes. Most of my knitting in the past few years has been my own designs, which I need to type up patterns for, and get copyrights on (:-p barf, paperwork...). I tend to make things up as I go, and I LOVE cabling. I hate DOING the cabling itself, but when it's done it makes me very happy, and I've made a couple of garments with really neat cabled trees; I just bought five skeins of Araucania Nature Wool Chunky in a bright lime green colorway which is going to become a cardigan... probably with a cabled tree on the back. I am not originally from Lincoln, THANK GOD!!!, but rather hail from beautiful Manhattan, KS, home to Kansas State University, a lively and varied small-business scene, and the world record for most bars within a square mile, Aggieville. But most importantly, Manhattan is home to Wildflower Yarns and Knitwear! Stop by the shop if you're in the neighborhood. I could pimp sooooo many more Manhattan businesses, but we'll just stick to knitting for now. Welcome to the blog. Should you continue to read my ramblings, I will lead you on a journey of words through my adventures in knitting, music, maybe some dating, and whatever else may come my way that I find it fit to spew on the internet.